In the Russian Federation, the Letim application appeared, where you can issue a virtual card of the Turkish payment system Troy

The Russians have an application with which you can issue a virtual card of the Turkish payment system Troy, pay for goods and services in the country and withdraw money from ATMs. You can replenish your account in lira from ruble accounts in Russian banks through the SBP. However, experts note that the instability of the Turkish lira, as well as high fees for card replenishment, cash withdrawals and conversion. Lawyers also point to meager information about the service and a non-working call center.

The Letim app appeared in the AppStore and PlayMarket app stores, with the help of which Russian tourists will be able to pay for goods and services, as well as withdraw money from ATMs in Turkey (using a QR code). The application opens a virtual card of the Turkish payment system Troy, and you can replenish it through the SBP (250 thousand lira per month, or about 850 thousand rubles). Only the entire balance on the virtual card can be returned to the account in a Russian bank. To register in the application, you will need a digital scan of a foreign passport.

As Kommersant was told in the Letim development company, it will soon be possible to make online transactions using these virtual cards, and contactless payment with a smartphone using NFC will be available in about a couple of months. At the same time, it is impossible to get a physical card of the Troy payment system. The company explained that the client opens an electronic wallet in Letim, and not an account in a Turkish bank.

At the end of April, Hurriyet reported on plans to develop a similar payment system by Russia and Turkey. In the Bank of Russia, when asked if the regulator participated in the creation of the product, Kommersant was told that they “do not comment on the projects of individual market participants.” But they noted that they support “initiatives aimed at providing the possibility of cashless payments for our citizens.”

According to experts, the proposed application most likely implements a scheme with Troy prepaid cards without opening a bank account. As Dmitry Vishnyakov, an independent expert on the payment card market, explains, “essentially, a Russian bank will buy prepaid products for Russians who will replenish them through the SBP system.”

According to the head of the Financial Innovations Association Roman Prokhorov, there are two tasks in the implementation of the service – ensuring proper identification of the client in accordance with local legislation and implementing a quick account replenishment: “The first is solved by conducting remote identification, which limits the possibility of opening a full-fledged account and issuing a physical card to it, and the replenishment of the wallet is implemented, obviously, through the SBP cross-border service.

Experts note that transaction costs should be taken into account in such a service. “Commissions for deposits, conversions and cash withdrawals can be quite high (against the background of the unstable Turkish lira exchange rate.— “b”),” says Dmitry Vishnyakov. However, in his opinion, many such products may appear, the main thing is to reach agreements with any Troy issuing bank.

Lawyers point out that a citizen of the Russian Federation must notify the Federal Tax Service about opening an account with a foreign bank. But, as Linda Kurkulyte, a lawyer in the BGP Litigation international tax planning practice, notes, if the account is opened in a country that exchanges financial information with the Russian Federation as part of an automatic exchange, and the total amount of receipts or write-offs does not exceed 600 thousand rubles. per annum, a cash flow statement may be omitted. “Turkey exchanges information with the Russian Federation as part of an automatic exchange, therefore, if other conditions are met, the report may not be submitted,” she says.

Lenar Wealth Management Managing Partner Lenar Rakhmanov believes that the account opened in the Letim app is most likely an “internal account on the aggregator, so there is hardly any obligation to notify the tax service.” At the same time, he draws attention to the fact that the Letim website lacks many important legal details – contacts about the legal entity, the logos used are not unique, and the call center does not respond.

Maxim Buylov, Olga Sherunkova